China, the most populous country in the world, has an unusual problem: it is creating too few new people.
To fix that, one city is offering couples up to R47,200 for babies they produce.
The southern city of Shenzhen is one of the first to propose cash incentives.
Cities across the country are planning ways to encourage couples to have more children.
According to the Communist Party-run newspaper Global Times, the city’s 17.7 million residents will be offered support worth about R18,000 for starting a family.
Couples who have three or more children will be eligible for a cash allowance of between R26,700 and R47,200.
The proposed handouts will be a mixture of one-off fees for registering the birth plus regular payments.
Mothers who give birth to a second and a third child will get a childcare subsidy or grant each month till the child turns three.
Shenzhen, one of the special economic zones, boasted China’s highest birth rate as it grew into a major manufacturing and technology hub. But the rate has since declined dramatically.
China has long held the tag of being the most populated country on earth, but a strict one-child policy dropped its birth rate considerably.
In 2016, China relaxed its one-child policy and allowed families to have two children. Then, in 2021, it introduced a three-child-per-family policy.
“We must establish a policy system to support births, and we must implement a national strategy to actively cope with ageing,” President Xi Jinping declared to the ruling party’s congress last year, as economists called for financial incentives.
Many residents of Shenzhen appear doubtful that the payments would encourage people to have more children. Only 10.6 million babies were born in China in 2021, the fewest since 1961, and the number was expected to decline in 2022 to below 10 million.
India is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous country this year.
Compiled by Mashudu Mabila
Pictured Above: Chinese babies in hospital
Image source: CNN
